page_title: South Fork Kings River
section_title: Course
hierarchical_section_title: South Fork Kings River / Course
caption_attribution_description: English: This is a photo of the South Fork Kings River in the King’s Canyon, located in Kings Canyon National Park.
context_page_description: The South Fork Kings River is a 44.1-mile tributary of the Kings River in the Sierra Nevada of Fresno County, California. The river forms part of Kings Canyon, the namesake of Kings Canyon National Park and one of the deepest canyons in North America with a maximum relief of 8,200 feet from rim to river.
context_section_description: The South Fork is the largest headwater of the Kings River. It originates at an elevation of 11,601 feet (3,536 m) at an unnamed lake in Kings Canyon National Park, south of Mather Pass and west of Split Mountain, in a high alpine basin known as Upper Basin. It flows south, and is paralleled for several miles by the combined Pacific Crest Trail/John Muir Trail. The trail and river separate at a point west of Taboose Pass, where the river turns to the southwest through a deep gorge between Cirque Crest to the northwest and Arrow Ridge to the southeast. To the east, the Muro Blanco cliffs rise more than half a mile (0.8 km) above the river.
  The river flows into Paradise Valley, where it flows in a south-southwest direction, and receives Woods Creek from the east directly below a footbridge that carries the Woods Creek Trail over the river. Until this point the river has been more or less continuous whitewater; in Paradise Valley the gradient lessens and the current slows. Below Paradise Valley the river once again flows through a narrow gorge where it drops 100 feet (30 m) over Mist Falls, one of the largest waterfalls in the park.
  It then enters Kings Canyon, a glacial valley with a flat meadow floor surrounded by granite cliffs, which has been compared by John Muir and others to Yosemite Valley in terms of appearance and geology. It receives Bubbs Creek, and turns due west, flowing gently through grassy flats including Zumwalt Meadow, occasionally forming rapids where it breaches ancient glacial moraines. It receives its largest tributary, Roaring River, from the south and passes through Cedar Grove, home to many campgrounds and visitor facilities.
  Further west the river reaches the deepest part of Kings Canyon, where Highway 180 follows the river closely for several miles, and Boulder Creek enters from the south. Boyden Cavern lies adjacent to the river just above Horseshoe Bend, the steepest and narrowest part of the canyon. The river joins with the Middle Fork Kings River in the Monarch Wilderness, just outside Kings Canyon National Park, to form the main stem of the Kings River.
caption: South Fork Kings River in the Kings Canyon
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